With AMD's intro of the Cypress (5800 Series) powered GPU's, AMD paved the way for DirectX 11's entry into the market. Being the first to deliver DirectX 11 to enthusiast consumers was not only a primary goal for AMD, but this also meant they were a step ahead of Nvidia. A full six months after Cypress hit the market, Nvidia finally released the long awaited Fermi powered GPU's, which were unfortunately launched with a premium cost. AMD knew the Cypress architecture had room to improve, and due to the Fermi architecture's release delay and marginal improvement over Cypress, AMD went back to the drawing board.